Design of Experiments Ideas - Control Systems?

[fluidmech]

Hi everyone,

I'm taking a Design of Experiments class which is focused on statistically designed experiments. I'm a bit lost for project ideas and this is my first graduate class. Would anyone have any ideas for an experiment that would have at least controllable factors that might have anything to do with control systems?

Thanks in advance!

 

[berkeman]

Hi everyone,

I'm taking a Design of Experiments class which is focused on statistically designed experiments. I'm a bit lost for project ideas and this is my first graduate class. Would anyone have any ideas for an experiment that would have at least controllable factors that might have anything to do with control systems?

Thanks in advance!

Can you say more about what "statistically designed experiments" means? What have other students done in the past for this project?

 

[fluidmech]

Can you say more about what "statistically designed experiments" means? What have other students done in the past for this project?

It could be something to the effect of wind tunnel testing to study aerodynamic behavior. In this case you would have a lot of different factors that could affect the results of the test, such as aerodynamic profile, wind speed, air pressure, air temperature, etc. The goal of the experiment would be to optimize the results based on varying control variables.

Examples would include:

• Wind tunnel testing (many different input factors)
• Tensile strength testing (affected by heat treatment, material composition, material supplier, cross sectional area, etc)
• Taste of a food recipe (different amounts of ingredients, cooking temperature, time, etc

If possible, I would like to do something related to Control Systems, but I can't really think of any good ideas. My plan is to email Professors to see if they have any ideas for something that could benefit their research. A portion of the experiment would be statistical analysis, including statistical significance of various factors.

Suggestions?

 

[berkeman]

It could be something to the effect of wind tunnel testing to study aerodynamic behavior. In this case you would have a lot of different factors that could affect the results of the test, such as aerodynamic profile, wind speed, air pressure, air temperature, etc. The goal of the experiment would be to optimize the results based on varying control variables.

Examples would include:

• Wind tunnel testing (many different input factors)
• Tensile strength testing (affected by heat treatment, material composition, material supplier, cross sectional area, etc)
• Taste of a food recipe (different amounts of ingredients, cooking temperature, time, etc

If possible, I would like to do something related to Control Systems, but I can't really think of any good ideas. My plan is to email Professors to see if they have any ideas for something that could benefit their research. A portion of the experiment would be statistical analysis, including statistical significance of various factors.

Suggestions?

So you want some sort of control system that has a number of inputs that need to be processed? If so, maybe:

• The gun barrel movement control system on a main battle tank -- there are a number of sensors that feed into the control system that let's the tank be so amazingly accurate at long distances and while the tank is moving. Can you name some of the inputs and the outputs of this control system?
• Autopilot systems on aircraft -- what are some of the inputs and outputs for such a system?
• Trajectory control systems for rockets -- what are the sensors and what are the outputs?

 

[fluidmech]

So you want some sort of control system that has a number of inputs that need to be processed? If so, maybe:

• The gun barrel movement control system on a main battle tank -- there are a number of sensors that feed into the control system that let's the tank be so amazingly accurate at long distances and while the tank is moving. Can you name some of the inputs and the outputs of this control system?
• Autopilot systems on aircraft -- what are some of the inputs and outputs for such a system?
• Trajectory control systems for rockets -- what are the sensors and what are the outputs? [emoji2]

These are fantastic suggestions but probably too large of a scope to be achievable within the semester.

That being said, maybe I'll think about something along the lines that is a bit smaller scale..